


on hold

by ignitesthestars



Series: a strange kind of redemption [4]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Kissing, Luke/Annabeth - Freeform, Past Percy/Nico - Freeform, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, heavy makeouts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 20:52:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12307548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignitesthestars/pseuds/ignitesthestars
Summary: Percy finally confronts Annabeth about what went down between her and Luke. It doesn’t go well, until it starts to go really well.





	on hold

It’s a week before Percy sees Annabeth again.

Well - not before he _sees_ her. It’s summer, so they’re both on full Camp duty before she goes back to school. They run drills, play Capture the Flag, get kids up onto Pegasi, and it’s only after the first couple of days that Percy realises that _somehow_ they’ve never been assigned to the same task at the same time. So sure, he’s seen her. For more than five seconds at a time? For a town that’s only half built, there sure seems to be a lot of places to hide. 

Annabeth, he knows, is in charge of schedules.

And - okay, sure. He could have gone after her that same day, but he’d had some terrible mixture of rage and guilt fizzing in his veins that made him feel untrustworthy. The last thing he wants to do is to take the same rage he’d felt around Luke out on Annabeth.

Luke, incidentally, shows up to work like he doesn’t have a bruise smeared across his cheek and a bandage across the bridge of his nose. Some distant part of Percy wonders if he’d refused to take ambrosia, or if Chiron hadn’t offered him any, and suspects it’s the former. Chiron’s not that kind of petty.

He always takes the younger kids. It puts a sour taste in Percy’s mouth, remembering how easily he’d been taken in by the other man’s charisma as a twelve year old, and Luke had still been a teenager then. Except that Luke as a man is more terrifying than talkative, and he rarely bothers with the social veneer of charm. He’s the big bad wolf of Camp Halfblood, and he takes the younger kids because he’s not responsible for murdering any of their siblings. At least, not ones that they’d ever known.

Percy thinks his life would be a lot easier if he could just hate him. He remembers doing it, remembers wanting to kill Luke, to be done with it all.

And then when Luke had lived, Annabeth’s bloody knife clenched in his hand, _did you ever love me_ still on his lips, all Percy had felt was tired.

He doesn’t know what he’s feeling these days. Luke at least has the dignity (or something) to stay away from him and Annabeth both, and the three of them exist in some hideous bubble of Knowing But Saying Nothing for nearly eight days.

Percy thinks about calling Frank, or Hazel. He even thinks about blurting it out to his mother over dinner, especially when she gives him that little frown of hers, perched over a smile like she’s trying not to be worried and failing miserably. But it turns out that _Annabeth had sex with the guy I used to think was my worst enemy and I think I might have lost my chance, and I can’t figure out which part bothers me the most, and I think that maybe some of it doesn’t bother me as much as I think it should_ is a) a mouthful, and b) really difficult to say to both your best friends and your mother.

He considers hunting Nico down for a hot second, before going to the nearest wall and slowly beating his head into it. It has the same chance of being a good plan as _that_ bright idea.

Really, the only person he can think he could explain this whole situation to without judgement is - well. The same person who’s avoiding him.

The thing with Luke is - it’s confusing, and even a week of distance doesn’t give him any more clarity. But the idea that Annabeth doesn’t want to see him, that he might have somehow done something to finally bring their relationship to the wrong kind of precipice?

That’s fucking heartbreaking. Which is how he ends up outside the clean, modern lines of her house, forehead pressed to the door, thumb hovering above the bell. 

Footsteps _clip_ up the path towards him. Pause. The sigh makes his lips quirk and his heart hurt. He doesn’t move, not even when the footsteps start up again.

“You’re going to make the neighbours stare.”

There aren’t a lot of neighbours yet. And the ones that are in this area of town are probably more than used to Percy-and-Annabeth shenanigans.

“They’ll probably survive.”

“Probably.”

“Haven’t decided if I’m gonna call down any hurricanes yet or not,” he says, dry enough that his voice cracks in the middle. And maybe it’s not humour haunting the edges of it, but grief.

Her hand ghosts over the small of his back, just enough to make his body seize up with - gods, he doesn’t even know anymore. “Come inside,” she says softly, and he lets the gentle pressure of her touch guide him into her house.

Percy doesn’t have his own place yet. Between Poseidon’s cabin and his mom and Paul’s place, it just hadn’t felt necessary. He spends a fair amount of his time here as well, in the wide-windowed spaces that look out into a thriving garden.

“Sit,” she instructs, and he folds obediently onto her couch. It’s an amorphous blue-green colour, He sort of wants to tip it over.

She stands opposite him, arms crossed tightly over her chest. He drinks in the sight of her, the tense hunch of her shoulders, the tired lines around her eyes.

“Let’s get it over with, then.”

He blinks, startled. “What...do you think I’m here to do?”

“The other half of whatever it was you did to Luke. Doesn’t that kind of toxic masculinity come with a serving of _how could you do **that** with **him**?_ ”

The thing is - the thing is, Percy loves Annabeth. He’s pretty sure she loves him. And loving someone to the extent that they do means knowing them, which means that Annabeth understands _exactly_ how to hit his buttons.

She didn’t bring him in here to talk this out, he realises too-late. She brought him in here expecting a fight.

 _Don’t rise to the bait_ , the sensible part of him begs. _Come on, Jackson, get it togeth--_

“He was asking for it,” Percy snaps.

“Really? Did he say, ‘please punch me in the face, Percy, I’m feeling masochistic today’?”

There’s a tremor in _her_ voice that he doesn’t understand, and it works under his skin like a splinter. Because there had been a time after Tartarus when it had felt like everything they did was in concert, when they barely had to speak to know what the other was thinking, and losing that _hurts_.

“Maybe he did! It’s not like you stuck around long enough to hear.”

A flush works up her cheeks. He can’t tell if it’s anger or embarrassment, and that just makes - everything, it makes everything worse.

“Maybe I didn’t want to be party to the two of you trying to mark your territory!”

“Mark my - I didn't know what was going on until after you left me there alone with him.”

“You really think he’d hurt me? You really think I’d _let_ him hurt me?”

“It’s not about let! And I don’t know what to think anymore, Annabeth, you fucked Luke Castellan and my whole world flipped upside down!”

Silence. That sour taste lingers in the back of Percy’s throat, except he doesn’t think he can blame his old nemesis for it anymore. Annabeth breathes fast with the force of her anger and he stands, too full of nervous energy to stay contained on the couch 

“Not that you - not that you’re my whole world,” he says, because sometimes he’s just incapable of shutting up. “But I like to think we’ve been on pretty stable ground for the last - little while? And this is pretty weird, Annabeth. You _know_ it’s pretty weird.”

Guilt, it occurs to him. The thing sitting in his throat is guilt.

“Would it surprise you,” Annabeth says finally, eyes narrowed. Can she tell? Percy almost wants her to be able to. Wants her to pick the truth out of the air between them so he doesn’t have to figure out how to say it, “if I told you that I wasn’t even thinking about you when I decided to do it?”

“When you decided to have sex with Luke Castellan,” he says, trying not to flinch because, _ouch_. And he barely has a leg to stand on here, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting, which just feeds into his anger. “ _Yeah_ , I don’t know, maybe? We’ve been sort of--”

“You thought I was going to keep waiting around forever until you made up your mind to want me?”

“Oh come _on_ , that’s rich! When did you ever make a first move? How was I supposed to know that you’d be okay with taking things further, we never talk about it!”

“Because it’s _terrifying_. Because if we’re both too scared to even talk about it, what’s it going to be like to _do_ something about it?”

“Better than this, probably!”

The thing is, even when they’re arguing, Percy and Annabeth’s brains work on a pretty compatible wavelength. Not the same one, by any means, but similar enough that it makes them really good in a fight together. Even when the thing they’re fighting is themselves.

So, _better than this_ falls into the silence between them. And Percy sees the thought on her face, almost in slow motion - _well, he’s not wrong about that_. And somewhere between him noticing and her opening her mouth to say it, he steps forward into her space, catching her by the elbows.

She’s not opening her mouth to say anything he realises too late, because she’s already kissing him.

It’s fast, messy. He’s pretty sure their teeth clack together but Percy doesn’t give a shit because it’s _Annabeth_ and she’s _kissing_ him. He drops his hands from her elbows to her hips, dragging her in closer, desperate to feel her. _Gods_ , but he’s thought about this so many times in the last few years. About talking it out, kissing her softly, walking up to her in the middle of a training session and laying one on her, Annabeth leaning over to press her lips to his when they’re on the beach in the middle of the night because neither one of them can sleep--

It’s never been like this, half anger and half confusion, but it’s never been real before either. Percy moans as she bites at his lower lip, mouth opening, crushing her to him. She tastes like - okay, she tastes like nothing in particular, but her hair smells like lemon and he can hear the soft sound in the back of her throat, barely there but about as desperate as he feels.

Did she kiss Luke like this?

 _Don’t go there, Jackson_.

Was it this needy between the two of them? Was there something about Luke that he couldn’t give her, something that Luke is just better at than he is--

“You’re thinking too much,” Annabeth murmurs, pulling away from him. His hands tighten briefly on her hips, a silent _no don’t go_ , but she’d just been yelling at him about treating her like a possession. He lets her go, and puffs out a laugh as she shoves both hands into his chest shoving him back into the couch.

“Aren’t you usually in favour of that kind of thing?”

“Not right now.”

His hands bracket her waist as she straddles him, and he half expects a pause there, a moment as she settles herself across his thighs where they stop and look at each other and breathe--

But there’s just her lips again (except there’s nothing _just_ about them, fuck), the harsh edges of her breathing, her fingers curling into the material of his shirt until he can feel the scrape of her nails through it. Heat shoots through him and when his hands tighten this time it’s _more please stay_.

She doesn’t seem to disagree, shifting closer. Her core is pressed tight to his groin and Percy’d be lying if that didn’t send implications shivering through his body. A part of him feels sort of embarrassed at how fucking eager he is right now, but it’s Annabeth. She’s seen him in a million different embarrassing situations, although not a lot of them have involved his dck. But it’s _Annabeth_. He doesn’t think anyone could blame him for being into this.

Except maybe Luke.

Percy groans, throwing his head back against the couch. How come every other part of his brain can shut off right now except that one? 

“Too much?” Annabeth murmurs. It is very much not an honest query, judging by the way she mouths over his jaw, down his throat. One hand untangles from his shirt and sweeps down over his stomach until it reaches the hem. She plays with it for maybe two seconds before her fingers slip up and under, cool against his overheated skin.

“Not on your life,” he growls. _It was her idea_ Luke had said, and he can just fucking picture it. Annabeth didn’t let anything stand in her way when she wanted something, and Luke had been the one with bruises. On his shoulder, right where her tongue is tracing a path now, and Percy’s body is moving again before his brain has anything to do with it.

She swears, loud and surprised as he twists and spills her onto her back, head hitting the pillow up against the arm of the couch. She bucks on instinct but they’ve fought like this a million times before and he’s braced for it.

Sort of. A harsh pants escapes him as the roll of her hips up against his, and maybe she didn’t exactly want to throw him off either, because it doesn’t have half the force behind it that it usually does. _There’s_ the pause he’d been expecting before, the breathless moment as she stares up at him, wide-eyed, curls in disarray and fucking gorgeous.

 _I love you_ , he thinks, and wonders if she can see it in his face.

He doesn’t want her to, so he drops is mouth to her ear, kissing the spot on her neck just under the lobe. “You don’t always get to be in charge of everything,” he says roughly, and she whimpers. 

She doesn’t mean to, he can tell by the way she stills under him, the flush of red that sweeps up her throat, but she fucking _whimpers_ and it’s enough to drive all the blood out of his head.

“Off,” she demands, tugging at his shirt, knuckles grazing his abs. “Percy, take it off.”

He puffs a laugh against wet skin, shaking his head. “Say please.”

“Bite me.”

“If you say so,” and his teeth graze her clavicle, a nip that his tongue soothes almost immediately. Her hands slip nerveless from under his shirt - just a second, but it gives him enough time to slide further down her body, pressing a brief kiss to her sternum until he’s pretty much straddling her knees, faced with place the hem of her simple Camp shirt meets the waistband of her shorts.

His eyes flicker up to meet hers, because he knows she’s watching. Know there’s no way, right now, that she wants to lie back and let him work.

“Okay?” he asks, because he’s a gentleman.

“I hate you.”

“ _That’s_ a lie.”

“Percy! _Move_!.”

His thumbs drag her shirt up. He presses a kiss just over the tan skin of her him, licks a path over the flat of her stomach, the sip and curve of the muscle there. _Gorgeous_ , he thinks, half hard against her as her hand slides through his hair and grips, hard.

And she is, each new reaction he draws from her burned into the back of his brain. And if it’s not exactly how he thought they’d first get intimate with each other, well, so what? They’re adults now, capable of making adult decisions. She fucked Luke without strings, apparently, why can’t they do the same now?

_“I don’t do no-strings,” he says, feeling somehow weighed down by the seriousness of his tone and unmoored at the same time. Despite the hand balled in his shirt, the forehead pressed into his shoulder._

_A snort puffs out against him. Nico lifts his head, dark eyes rolling. “You think I’m coming to the guy whose fatal flaw is loyalty for a friends with benefits situation?”_

Ah.

Right.

That’s why.

“Percy?” Annabeth’s voice is breathy irritation at the way he’s paused, forehead pressed to her stomach. But it drains away when he doesn’t move, the hand in his hair dropping hastily to his chin, tilting his head up. “Hey. Seaweed Brain. Are _you_ okay?”

He’s not. He’s really, really not, even with the love of his life spread like a dream out in front of him. Because Annabeth _is_ the love of his life, even if maybe he’s not hers, and he really can’t do no strings anything with her.

And. Gods, he doesn’t want to admit it because it’s _Luke’s_ voice in the back of his mind now, but he really shouldn’t be getting upset at her about whatever she got into with him, if he can’t be honest about exactly what happened while she was away at school last semester.

“Sorry,” he croaks, reeling back, away from her. He makes his escape to the other edge of the couch, half-expecting irritated Annabeth to come back. “I’m sorry.”

But Annabeth isn’t completely terrible with feelings, and she’s pinned the shift in mood down to something a little more serious that just _oh, I don’t want you after all._ She shuffles up from her elbows to a sitting position, tucking her feet back to her chest until she’s situated firmly opposite him.

“What are you sorry for?” she says finally, uncertain.

Percy drags a hand down his face. “I’m not - this isn’t me, Annabeth. Or it’s not - I guess it is me, I’m right here, but it’s not how I wanted to do this.”

“We haven’t been doing this at all.” Her expression is unreadable, even for him. “We’ve spent a really long time not doing this, Percy. It’s not a _bad_ thing that the thing that finally cracked us open was a fight.”

He shrugs, helpless. “I guess I never wanted us to be cracked open in the first place.” Okay, _that_ face isn’t unreadable, her features abruptly stricken. He hastens to add - “Not like that! _Yes_ , I want this, I want you, but - you know me.”

His face is hot and he can’t find the right words. Not with Luke and Nico and the sound of Annabeth’s whimper all swirling around in his brain. The taste of her, the touch of her, the way his body fit just right against her. He just sort of has to hope she does know him.

A toe nudges his leg. He startles, blinking at her foot, up the impossibly long leg to look at her again. There’s a faint smile playing about her lips, but her brow is still furrowed.

“I know you’re a sap,” she says after a beat. “This is too messy for you, isn’t it?”

 _With Luke_. It goes unsaid, and it would be so easy to just leave it there. But Percy’s not that kind of guy, especially not when he knows that Annabeth is absolutely the sort of person to walk away from this and beat herself up for making it a mess, when it’s not...just that. Or even mostly that.

So Percy rubs the back of his neck, turns his face up to the ceiling. “It’s messier than you know about.”

“...How much messier?” If there’s one thing Annabeth Chase hates, it’s not knowing things.

Which he’d known, when he decided to keep this from her. And he’d kept it anyway, because she hadn’t been here when it happened and it was over by the time she came back, and how do you talk to your best friend that you’re definitely in love with about the entire relationship you had while she was gone?

Of course, the flipside of that is, _how could you keep something like that from her._

“Percy, if you don’t want to tell me you don’t have to. We can take some time, take a break or something. Let things settle down and talk about it lat--”

“Nico and I dated,” he blurts, because Percy Jackson is about as subtle as a giant wooden horse sometimes. “Not for a long time, but also not for...not a long time. You weren’t here, and I never told you because I guess it was important. Or it meant something to me, and I really don’t know how to talk about anything to do with romance with you anymore, Annabeth.” A beat. “Not that I never did.”

Her head is still tilted at him in that curious way that means she’s processing information, although he’s sure she heard him. It feels like his entire heart is in his throat as he watches her mouth form a shape, hears the soft sound that escapes it.

“Oh.”

“....yeah.”

She draws her legs back to her chest. The smile is gone now, furrow in full force. When that grey-eyed gaze meets his, it’s sort of like being pinned right to the spot.

“You had an entire _relationship_ that you didn’t tell me about.”

“Uh. Yes.”

“With _Nico di Angelo_.”

He winces. “That - um, that was the guy, yes.”

“Then where the hell do you get off hauling _me_ over the coals for _one night_ with Luke?”

“Hold on, no one was hauling anyone over any coals--”

“How come you get to be jealous, and I get to be kept in the dark? For months?”

“Right, because you were definitely going to tell me about Luke.”

“Maybe I wasn’t!” She stands up from the couch, tugging at the hem of her shirt, cheeks flushed, hair all a mess. Still gorgeous. “But you don’t get to be upset about that either, because apparently we just don’t tell each other things anymore!”

She starts to walk away from him.

She starts to walk away from him and Percy knows he should let her go, that they could probably both use the time to cool down, chill out, whatever other cold metaphor exists in the world.

“Please,” he says instead, and it stops her in her tracks.

Her fists are clenched. She might be trembling, or maybe that’s just his eyes tearing up. He dashes the back of his hand across them, clears his throat.

“Don’t go. We can tell each other things now.”

Slowly - gods, so slowly he nearly runs out of air holding his breath and waiting - she turns. Her face is red, but her eyes are redder. Not crying, but only because she’s better at holding it back than he is.

“This sucks a lot,” she rasps. “I don’t know what to feel anymore, Percy.”

“Me either. Well.” He dips his head. “I know one thing. It’s the most important thing. But everything else seems to have gotten in the way of that in the last couple of years. And I don’t think it gets any better if we keep walking away from it.”

She wants to, he can see it in the lines of her body, the uncertain huch in her shoulders. Hell, the urge to just up and leap over the back of the couch and run for the door is roiling in his gut. But he forces himself to stay, to keep looking at her. 

To wait.


End file.
